Abstract
Paper presented at the European Academy of Management Conference EURAM, Reykjavik, Iceland, June 21-24, 2018.
Multi-party systems bring together various stakeholder groups or group representatives and offer an platform for sharing their diverse interests, knowledge and expertise in order to develop and realize joint goals. They display complex relational dynamics in which within-group interactions (interpersonal interactions within each stakeholder party) as well as between-group interactions (interactions between the stakeholder parties) intertwine to generate bottom-up and top-down influences. Bottom-up influences describe the relational dynamics that arise from the stakeholder parties influencing the way all other parties are perceived, that is, having an impact on the overall system. Top-down influences refer to how relational dynamics characterizing the larger system influence the stakeholder parties. So far, the literature on multi-party systems lacks systematic investigations of these concurring types of influences. Our study investigates the dynamic interplay between experienced conflict within one’s stakeholder party, and perceived collaborativeness as well as conflictuality of the other stakeholder parties, using a simulation and adopting a longitudinal perspective. Our results show that changes in task conflict at the stakeholder party level positively predict changes in perceived collaborativeness in the overall system, while changes in relationship conflict at the stakeholder party level positively predict changes in perceived conflictuality in the system. Moreover, we show that changes in perceived overall conflictuality leads to a proportional change in relationship conflict experienced within the stakeholder parties. We discuss our results in terms of their practical implications for the development of multi-party collaboration as well as their theoretical contributions to the multiparty literature.
Multi-party systems bring together various stakeholder groups or group representatives and offer an platform for sharing their diverse interests, knowledge and expertise in order to develop and realize joint goals. They display complex relational dynamics in which within-group interactions (interpersonal interactions within each stakeholder party) as well as between-group interactions (interactions between the stakeholder parties) intertwine to generate bottom-up and top-down influences. Bottom-up influences describe the relational dynamics that arise from the stakeholder parties influencing the way all other parties are perceived, that is, having an impact on the overall system. Top-down influences refer to how relational dynamics characterizing the larger system influence the stakeholder parties. So far, the literature on multi-party systems lacks systematic investigations of these concurring types of influences. Our study investigates the dynamic interplay between experienced conflict within one’s stakeholder party, and perceived collaborativeness as well as conflictuality of the other stakeholder parties, using a simulation and adopting a longitudinal perspective. Our results show that changes in task conflict at the stakeholder party level positively predict changes in perceived collaborativeness in the overall system, while changes in relationship conflict at the stakeholder party level positively predict changes in perceived conflictuality in the system. Moreover, we show that changes in perceived overall conflictuality leads to a proportional change in relationship conflict experienced within the stakeholder parties. We discuss our results in terms of their practical implications for the development of multi-party collaboration as well as their theoretical contributions to the multiparty literature.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
| Event | European Academy of Management Conference EURAM: Research in Action - Accelerating knowledge creation in management - Reykjavik, Iceland Duration: 21 Jun 2018 → 24 Jun 2018 http://euramonline.org/annual-conference-2018 |
Conference
| Conference | European Academy of Management Conference EURAM |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Iceland |
| City | Reykjavik |
| Period | 21/06/18 → 24/06/18 |
| Internet address |
Keywords
- collaboration
- conflict
- participation
- multi-party collaborative systems
- group dynamics